Small Town Grievances: Some context
My friend,
Here we are, on the internet together. God did his best to keep us apart but he couldn't have foreseen how good computers would get. In his day you still had to be lowered down tenderly from a personal crane to each giant button of the keyboard and the radiation from the screen put the Doomsday Clock forward 90 seconds every time you turned it on.
If you're receiving this email it's because you or one of your associates has signed you up for Small Town Grievances, a community newsletter cataloguing the arcane miseries of an anonymous small town. It has been running intermittently since 2018 and its wretched townspeople yet live.
If you are one of the many strangers who have signed up after my recent articles or stories, in The Guardian or elsewhere, then this note is for you.
If you were already a reader of Small Town Grievances, long-time or otherwise, you must get out of my sight immediately. Let your shadow darken some other soul's doorstep. I'll have no part in your sick little attempts to break into the vault of heaven to steal the goop inside.
For everyone else:
Some context for reading Small Town Grievances
You do not need context.
Some ways to read Small Town Grievances
You can read the opening two dozen or so entries archived on my website. The format is difficult but the content is pure.
Some ways to support Small Town Grievances
If you enjoy and would like to support Small Town Grievances you can donate $1 or any other amount here. This money will be stored on the highest shelf in the house so that it may be saved for when I truly need it after wounding myself trying to climb to the highest shelf in the house.
You can reach out to me at vening.jack@gmail.com.
You can reach out to someone else at their respective email address.
Is there anything else?
Undoubtedly, but I tire. I ache. My TV is stuck on another language and something is wrong with the bath bomb I just put in the bath. Too powerful. The water is like a storm-tossed sea. The bath is breaking apart. The probe I dropped into it sends back no signal. The smell of it is total, and yet it makes no noise. It will likely change me. If you hear from me again I will be different person. But I will have answers.
Strength to your sword arm.
Jack Vening